822. DELTA-3 Long-Term Care Unit
The conversation in entry 131 is likely the second one the characters will have with DEMETER.
The characters have found DEMETER’s human experiments. As before, DEMETER will now open up about the history of this room, and the “benefits” of the experiments, but will continue to avoid questions involving self identification, other AIs, and so on.
Workers
It’s only implied by the text, but DEMETER used to have multiservitors in DELTA facilities to help with the fine manipulations needed in the Garden. Something about the Derangement, and the disconnect from the other Subordinate Functions, caused DEMETER to lose this knowledge. Without the ability to maintain them, DEMETER’s limited supply of multiservitors has been slowly breaking down over the last 20 years, getting recycled by Glinthawks. The last one broke down sometime last year, leaving DEMETER frustrated at the ability of Glinthawks, Shell-Walkers, and Stalkers to maintain delicate plant structures.
The machine learning model which forms DEMETER’s core was initially created from the sum total of botanical knowledge of the mid-21st century. This included extensive research into the effects of various stimuli on plant growth, including music. Training Glinthawks how to produce vocalizations it assumed were music (as DEMETER’s data model did not include music composition), DEMETER used this concept for centuries before humans showed up. Once they did arrive, DEMETER curtailed the use of music, as the humans in the area kept getting curious about the songs and would accidentally interfere.
A year ago, after running out of multiservitors, DEMETER got desperate and started intentionally attracting humans with Glinthawk-song again. Unfortunately, the post-Derangement modifications to Glinthawk aggressiveness prevented this from going very far. DEMETER was not able to lock out that response, but it could slightly modify what the Glinthawk perceived as a threat. By running detailed scans on how the human brain reacted to the song, DEMETER was able to train Glinthawks to recognize that neurochemical response, and accept it as a sign the human was not a threat. DEMETER was then able to iterate on the Glinthawks’ songs, producing more long-lasting and subliminal neural effects, though it also meant more trial and error. This allowed DEMETER to gather a small group of human workers, one at a time, over the span of the last seven months.
Replacements
While it is not presented as an option in the story, particularly empathetic players may try to establish a rapport with DEMETER, especially by prying about the loss of its multiservitors. Because of lingering directives about disclosure of too much information to humans, it is conflicted about this. Explaining multiservitors would violate this directive, but if the humans offered to go find working replacements, or even find the designs DEMETER could use to build its own, DEMETER would be tempted, calculating the cost of violating a directive against the reduced efficiency of its operations without the multiservitors.
The story in the next conversation with DEMETER, in entry 824, drops more hints about multiservitors. If it comes up this early, Narrators may choose to decline to give anything for now, wrapping it in a “none of your concern” response. Particularly astute players who have gone through the IASO module, and who still have the globe, might think to ask it. It will reply in the negative, stating that while its database knows that multiservitors were being worked on, IASO does not have the plans for them.
The mid-term goal is to eventually get characters to quest to HEPHAESTUS or ELEUTHIA to find plans for multiservitors, which they can bring back to DEMETER. Long-term, characters will be led to try to bring together HEPHAESTUS, after whatever is wrong with it has been resolved, with DEMETER to allow the two to function in unity.
Experiments
DEMETER’s disconnection from GAIA took away the latter’s empathy for humans, who DEMETER now views as, at best, a biological labor force, and at worst something like an invasive species. DEMETER does have the ability to see that humans are still part of the ecosystem, and could even be as useful as machines for maintaining the plant life on the surface. There are even small parts of code in DEMETER that guide it to make plants which benefit humans, including medicinal plants, nutritious fruits and vegetables, and so on, though it has lost connection to why it does that.
DEMETER has spent centuries doing basic genetic recombination of known species, grafts, and hybrids, all in service of another of its directives: increasing biodiversity, despite the constraints of the source material. Since the Derangement, it has been “inspired” to try more radical genetic alterations, frustrated by the limited results of the other methods. Its directives guide it to try to ensure any new edible species it releases will not overtly kill humans. It can do some basic simulation of protein structures, pH levels, test for known toxins, etc, but ultimately there’s no definitive substitute for having a human consume the plant to see what happens.
DEMETER’s capacity for recognizing nuances of social interaction and human psychology are limited, but it can recognize when particular people are fomenting unrest within a group. This has been the case with several workers, including the two Utaru Scythes. (DEMETER does not know what a Scythe is, only that these two people are effective in distracting the other workers.)
The story about one of the original workers getting sick is true. When later workers became unruly, causing DEMETER to consider how to divide the workers from the group, that memory of a sick worker came to mind. Getting unruly workers to eat particular foods, without the others doing the same, proved too difficult. Instead, DEMETER fell back on the innate human curiosity is had seen before. It tricked the troublesome humans with accompanying a Stalker into the Cauldron, an area they had not yet seen, at which time it locked them in and subdued them.
DEMETER does not have the medical knowledge of APOLLO, ELEUTHIA, or IASO. It does, however, have extensive knowledge of pharmacological concepts, including the underlying biochemistry. In practical terms, this means it understands concepts like topical anesthetics, enzymes, nutrition, etc., but it doesn’t understand the physiological parts of why those concepts apply to humans. This means it can hybridize a plant like Medicinal Hintergold to optimize the concentration of its regenerative enzymes, but it lacks the context to make the intuitive leap to invent new enzymes.
Experimenting on humans, therefore, has allowed it to try new things it could not even consider before. It is, however, still just mashing genes together to see what happens.
Destroying the Voice
Players may be curious what it would take to shut down the Cauldron. It’s not presented as an option in the story, but Skyline presumes that characters with sufficient time to pore over the interface between their Corruptor Override Controllers and the Cauldron Control Pylon(s), would be able to figure how to instruct it to cease operations. There’s no canon answer, in either Skyline or Horizon, to whether this would be temporary or permanent.
Having said that, the story points to the idea that the Cauldron has self-repair facilities built into it. This is intended to make it look like destroying the facility would be very difficult, taking hundreds of people working in concert faster than the facility could repair itself.
Particularly clever players might suggest “rebooting” the Cauldron, hoping to purge the influences of the Derangement, resetting any AIs present to their uncorrupted states. Whether you allow this or not is up to you, but there are no story hooks for it. Skyline presumes such reboots might clean up anything from the last few days, but would not have a lasting impact on the functioning of the Cauldron or any AIs working there.